ares35

ares35 , 1 month ago

i've seen two of these things around here. they've both been on the flatbed of a local towing service.

ares35 , 1 month ago

at the office we have the ones you have to push down--and hold for the water to run. i've encountered them elsewhere and you get 10-20 seconds before the water shuts off... ours doesn't. by the time you get your hand down to the water, it's shut off.

ares35 , 1 month ago

i bought a big external hdd recently on impulse... a clearance sale. it was really, really cheap. with the thinking that i could 'shuck' it because i'm short on space in a couple storage systems. i checked. i can, but i haven't. hell, i haven't even used it yet other than to run a full smart diag on it, followed by a full format and a read/write verify. took days. then i put it back in the box and have basically forgotten about it until now.

you have to be careful on what models you buy. some have usb built onto the controller board (no internal sata) or other things (e.g. encryption chip, weird power) that make it more difficult or even impossible to use the internal drive in an environment other than the enclosure it ships in.

ares35 , 1 month ago

i bought a few smr drives, knowing they were smr. they were cheaper, a lot cheaper than the same amount of space in cmr. used only for static media storage, so that's not a big deal, really., but holy hell was it slow getting stuff on them initially.

i have a few self-powered externals that are also smr (quite common with those as they use 2.5in notebook hdd). when those things have to start shuffling bits around and rewriting tracks, sustained write speeds fall well under what even usb2 can send.

ares35 , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

there's a lot of stupid, ignorant assholes running small businesses all over the place that think they own their employees and can boss them 24/7. this could totally be a legit posting somewhere.

if you want me answering my phone 24/7, you're paying me 24/7--and providing the phone you want me to answer.

ares35 , 1 month ago

fire the computer. go back to the pigeons

ares35 , 1 month ago

patents is what you're thinking of. and all (afaik) of them relating to mp3 format have expired.

ares35 , 1 month ago

verizon did the same thing awhile ago, and it was more than five bucks a month.

was still cheaper for us to keep the old plan than to switch to a new "unlimited" one, though.

ares35 , 1 month ago

don't mess around with imaging to a file on the zfs, then restoring it. simply clone nvme -> nvme using a usb nvme adapter then replace the internal with the clone.

ares35 , 1 month ago

usb nvme adapters are not expensive and it likely won't be the only time you need it. they are a handy accessory to have on hand if you have nvme storage.

ares35 , 1 month ago

same deal with the far-right alternatives to aarp. just scamming money from america's most gullible.

ares35 , 1 month ago

that's not a 'problem' everywhere.

if they dump the free refills here and still take 15 minutes to make a simple order, i'm going elsewhere. i've already cut way down because of cost and time, i'll just forget they exist entirely. three competitors are literally adjacent. all three also have free refills, and all three can beat mcdonalds service times. prices are basically the same now, mcdonalds hasn't had that advantage since before covid.

ares35 , 1 month ago

mom always got her 'cut'....

as payment for driving us across town to the 'good' neighborhoods.

ares35 , 1 month ago

my knees and back say i don't need any further reminders. but thank you.

ares35 , 1 month ago

first boot: no i don't want a 365 trial.

still first boot: no i don't want 365 'basic', either.

(you should know this msa already has a one-off office license on it, you fuckwits)

and yea, still in first boot: no i don't want game pass trial.

then game pass notifications shortly after from the 'store'.

this was this past weekend setting up a new desktop with 11 pro.

ares35 , 1 month ago

didn’t go to full HD(or even 720p) on Firefox on Linux

you will run into similar restrictions on other services that use drm.

ares35 , 1 month ago

it really depends on where and from whom you get it. i've seen laptops sold as 'brand new' that have been cracked-open by sellers and 'upgraded' to sata ssd from nvme (worked on one a few months ago a guy just bought as new off amazon, with no indication in the listing that it isn't as-built by hp originally); and i've seen more than a few 'refurbished' units (desktops and laptops) with cheap sata ssd used where nvme was available.

ares35 , 1 month ago

it's a 'refurb', listings for those by third-party sellers are usually lacking in details, just saying 'ssd'--not what type or brand. technically, op got what he ordered.

ares35 , 1 month ago

my old phones (going back all the way to the 'real' nokias) went a full month between charges. the last two with 4g volte suck so much power, it is every 2-3 days now, including my current hmd-made nokia (only a couple weeks old) with same capacity battery as what's stated in the article for the 'new' one.

ares35 , 2 months ago

i have a flip phone. i don't use sms, but occasionally i make a quick note in the little 'notepad'. the good ol' tap-tap-tap is more efficient than its horrible predictive text.

ares35 , 2 months ago

it was spun-off from asus in '02, then acquired by a different spin-off in '10 which asus retains significant ownership of. so, yea, basically asrock is their "discount" brand,

ares35 , 2 months ago

Full autonomous vehicles, and particularly significant levels of adoption of them are decades away

the only way fully-autonomous vehicles will truly work and work as envisioned, is if user-operated ones are taken off the roads entirely. and yes, that is at least 'decades away'

ares35 , 2 months ago

"decades" from now, autonomous vehicles will have their own roadways, designed for them and with the infrastructure needed for the tech at that future time.

the streets as we know them today will be for last-mile (literally) transport, pedestrians, bicycles, some forms of public transit, and what not.

ares35 , 2 months ago

for every person that figures out how to disable this stuff, there are many thousands of others who don't, don't bother, or don't even know it might be possible to... which is why they pull this shit in the first place--and (usually) get away with it.

ares35 , 2 months ago

i use private windows mainly so i don't clutter up browser histories with useless stuff i won't go back to (if i do run across something to save, it gets bookmarked or printed to pdf).

ares35 , 2 months ago

a pallet of 4th gens? i have a dozen left here from around that era that i can't get rid of without literally giving them away. they're 'tolerable' for a gui linux or win10 with an ssd, but the 'performance per watt' just isn't there with hardware this old. i used a few of them (none in an always-on role, though), but the rest just sit in the corner, without home nor purpose.

these 800 g1s are, iirc, 12vo, so upgrade or reuse potential is a bit limited. most users would want windows, and win10 does run 'ok enough' on 4th gen, just make sure they're booting from ssd (120gb minimum). but they'll run into that arbitrarily-errected wall-of-obsolescence with trying to upgrade or install win11 when win10 retires in ~ 18 months (you can 'rufus' a win11 installer, but there's no guarantee that you will be able to in the future). that limits demand and resale value of pretty much all the pre-8th gen hardware.

ares35 , 2 months ago

the 'problem' is: you can't upgrade; you're stuck with that 8gb.

want more in a year or two? you have to buy a new mac. and that's apple's goal--sell more product. buyers will be back (because they're hooked on the platform and ecosystem) to buy a new one sooner than they otherwise would have.

ares35 , 2 months ago

it's not just apple anymore. all the major 'pc' makers have non-upgradeable laptops now.. just not across their entire line-up (yet).

ares35 , 2 months ago

so, tom's swings-and-misses... again?

ares35 , 3 months ago

and this is why i refused to give you my social back when i lived in your service area and had a land line installed.

ares35 , 3 months ago

my vizio has been stuck on a tos update acceptance screen since about the time of the recent roku shit. i haven't had the time to deal with it, so it's just been turned off.

ares35 , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

i do edit photos and video on a 15 year old desktop. yea, it's not as fast. it even still only has mechanical hdd. it works. i really don't give a shit how long it takes to encode. it can sw encode hd h264 in 'real time' (sw giving better quality output and at a smaller file size than the faster gpu encoding), that's good enough for me. it does everything the much newer system i've been able to use recently at the office can do--it's just slower at some things.

ares35 , 3 months ago

apple does 'support' their hw better, it's just that it's a pretty low bar to start with these days. they and their competitors could do better--much better, but zomg! someone has to think of the shareholders. they're far more important than users or the planet.

ares35 , 3 months ago

erecting a firewall.

someone spycheck already, dammit!

MEDIC!!!!

ares35 , 3 months ago

they're just trying to con people into using the new data harvesting mail app by calling it 'outlook'

ares35 , 3 months ago

the legislation that needs to get passed, cannot, unless and until the house majority swings about 20 points the other way and the sliver of a majority in the senate is boosted by at least another 10.

ares35 , 3 months ago

tracking, ads, cookies, probably bot detection, too. they want it all running and enabled.

fuck 'em. on desktop, i just drag over the headline and search via right click menu for an alternate site that re-publishes nyt articles or has one that covers the same thing.

ares35 , 3 months ago

UFLPA Entity List - https://www.dhs.gov/uflpa-entity-list

they were placed on it last year. specifically, this section:

A list of entities working with the government of Xinjiang to recruit, transport, transfer, harbor or receive forced labor or Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, or members of other persecuted groups out of Xinjiang

ares35 , 4 months ago

recovery records are an essential feature for.... uh.... certain 'distribution methods' about which we are forbidden to speak of.

ares35 , 4 months ago

just add it to the pile

ares35 , 4 months ago

it took him hours to do this?

After attempting to sign in using a@a.com (for example) and inputting any old password string the installer pops up an error message saying “Oops, something went wrong.” Clicking the ‘Next’ button then allows you to add an offline user / password of your choice,

he's even dumber than i thought.

his head is so fucking swollen by his ego he can't even do a simple web search (which would have given the above workaround in a top result) or ask any of the three or four remaining on his IT staff for help.

ares35 , 4 months ago

don't forget to carry your No. 3 Robertson head non-slip screwdriver.

ares35 , 4 months ago

that's great. most of us are more than a billion dollars short of a billion.

ares35 , 4 months ago

system disk encryption is possible, yes.

ares35 , 4 months ago

it's nypost, did you expect accuracy?

ares35 , 4 months ago

here in the boonies, every cellular carrier, every internet provider, every--everything... goes out with single fiber cut. even cable tv goes dark since they took out local headend here (connected now via fiber to a town an hour away).

except for POTS, and the voice and data carried on it. when the whole town gets cut-off from the outside world for a whole day or more, which has happened four times in the last four years. the good ol' shitty telco is still going; their cables are separate, and go entirely different directions out of town.

that's why we still have a landline at the office; having a line-powered phone for when the power goes out (also not uncommon) is just a bonus.

ares35 , 4 months ago

we still play that game. at least once every week or two, i'm calling a 'lost' phone from another or using the handset locator on a cordless system.

ares35 , 4 months ago

'unwelcome'. of course. but this is no surprise. they jacked-up rates for new subs nearly a year ago, while leaving existing ones alone. that reprieve is now over.